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A NEW BEGINNING
On October 7, 1950, Archbishop Périer came to the house at 14 Creek
Lane for the first time to celebrate mass at the altar located in the tiny
chapel on the second floor. A large number of persons assembled to hear
Father Van Exem read the decree of erection recognizing the Missionaries
O U T O F A C E S S P O O L — H O P E
4 9
of Charity as a new congregation limited to the diocese of Calcutta. That
same day, 11 young women began their lives as postulates of the new
order. It was a joyous occasion for all.
Over the next two years, 29 young women joined Mother Teresa. All
took up residency on the second floor of the Gomes’s house, which res-
onated with their activity. Mother Teresa wrote in her journal of the trust,
surrender, and cheerfulness of the newcomers. She observed with special
pride how dutifully they accepted the vow of poverty required of them.
It was not an easy life. The novices washed their clothes and their bod-
ies using communal buckets. They cleaned their teeth with ashes and
slept on thin pallets. Their meager pile of garments consisted only of their
cotton saris, coarse underwear, a pair of sandals, a crucifix pinned to the
left shoulder, a rosary, and an umbrella to protect them from the monsoon
rains. All these items were packed in a small bundle (
potla
), which they
used as a pillow.
To celebrate the completion of the new nun’s postulancy, or taking of
vows, Father Van Exem created a special ceremony. The novices came to
the cathedral dressed as Bengali brides. During the service, they went to
a room where Mother Teresa cut their hair. This practice represented a
tremendous sacrifice, as many Bengali girls regarded their long hair as a
great gift. The women’s hair was often so long that the entire process took
several hours to complete. They then reappeared in their religious habits
as novices. It was a beautiful ceremony and one that Mother Teresa com-
pletely approved for its incorporation of high church ritual with the local
culture. Father Van Exem remembered with some amusement the reac-
tion of the locals to the first ceremonies of this kind: “The ordination of a
priest takes two hours, the consecration of a bishop three hours, the re-
ception of a Missionary of Charity four hours!”
12
Not everyone, however,
was pleased at the spectacle of young Bengal brides who were in fact not
really married but had entered into the Catholic Church.
It was soon apparent that the quarters at Creek Lane were becoming
too small for the growing number of sisters. Father Van Exem and Father
Henry once again went to work searching for new quarters for the order.
One of the first nuns to join the order remembered how Mother Teresa
and her nuns helped the two priests:
Father Henry organized a procession every evening. He ac-
companied the sisters as we went through the Calcutta streets
saying the rosary aloud. . . . And from six to nine, we went on
the road from our house to St. Teresa’s Church and hence to
Fatima Chapel, praying there and again on our way home. We
5 0
M O T H E R T E R E S A
were asking our Lady of Fatima to obtain for us the new house
we needed.
13
Finally, a suitable house was found at 54A Lower Circular Road. The
home, which belonged to a former Muslim magistrate, was bought by the
diocese of Calcutta with the understanding that Mother Teresa would
pay back the loan. In February 1953, Mother Teresa and her group moved
into their new residence. In tribute to their founder, the sisters called it
Motherhouse.
NOTES
1. Eileen Egan,
Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa
—
The Spirit and the
Work
(Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1986), p. 43.
2. Egan,
Vision,
p. 43.
3. Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla,
Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of
Mother Teresa,
(Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1999), p. 39.
4. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 38.
5. Kathryn Spink,
Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography
(San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1997), p. 38.
6. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 40.
7. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 40.
8. Egan,
Vision,
p. 48.
9. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 42.
10. Edward Le Joly,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Biography
(San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1977), p. 28.
11. Mother Teresa with Jose Luis Gonzàles-Balado,
Mother Teresa: In My Own
Words
(New York: Gramercy Books, 1996), pp. 24, 30.
12. Spink,
Mother Teresa,
p. 43.
13. Le Joly,
Mother Teresa,
p. 30.
O U T O F A C E S S P O O L — H O P E
5 1
Chapter 5
“RIGOROUS POVERTY IS OUR
SAFEGUARD”
Lower Circular Road is a humming center of activity in Calcutta. The
street is filled with pedestrians and traffic. The everyday drone of people,
car horns, rickshaw bells, and trams is broken occasionally by the passing
of Hindu processions and political parades. With all the commotion, it is
easy to overlook the residence located at 54A Lower Circular Road; the
noise of the everyday world drowns out the daily prayers of the home’s res-
idents.
To get to 54A Lower Circular Road, one takes a narrow lane that leads
to a three-storied, gray-washed building. On closer inspection, however,
one sees that there are really two houses that surround a small courtyard.
Leaving the lane takes one to the front brown-painted door; here is a
small chain attached to the frame, which, when pulled, rings a bell on the
inside. The bell is an acknowledgement of the power outages that often
plague Calcutta. Once inside the home, the visitor is in a very special
place: the center of activity for the Missionaries of Charity and their now-
deceased founder, Mother Teresa.
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